Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins Visits the Radiological Research Accelerator Facility

Irvington, NY – Today, Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins toured the Radiological Research Accelerator Facility (RARAF) Nevis Laboratory to learn about the important work that they perform.

“It is exciting to visit such an innovative and cutting-edge facility, and I am proud that this laboratory is part of our community,” said Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins. “The Radiological Research Accelerator Facility is a world-class facility and thanks to its dedicated staff, it continues to pave the way forward in hi-tech medical research.”

During the tour Senator Stewart-Cousins met with Dr. Andrew Harkin and Dr. Guy Garty, Associate Dean of Government & Community Affairs of Columbia University Medical Center, to discuss the facility’s future and how the accelerator is used to further medical research. RARAF is a biomedical resource center that specializes in the delivery of known quantities of radiation to targeted samples. It is the only facility of its kind in the U.S. and is a National Resource Center. The Radiological Research Accelerator Facility is supported by the National Institutes of Health.

The facility was founded in the 1960’s by Doctors V. P. Bond and H. H. Ross. It has been in operation for more than four decades and has housed experiments from 50 different research groups. Research has been conducted in the fields of radiation biology, radiological physics, radiation chemistry, health physics, and medicine. For more information about RARAF, please visit: http://raraf.org.